


Highway Kind

by likeadeuce



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-10
Updated: 2009-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-04 08:20:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeadeuce/pseuds/likeadeuce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rogue-Demon Hunter Wesley and Strip-Club-Dishwasher Xander meet up in Oxnard.  Events take their course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Highway Kind

My days they are the highway kind  
They only come to leave  
But the leaving I don't mind  
It's the coming that I crave  
\-- Lyle Lovett, "Highway Kind"

Wesley pulled the motorcycle into the parking lot of Sharp Larry's Car Repair and Bait Shop, with fumes in his tank and three dollars and twenty-one cents in his pocket.

Deep in his pocket, at that, and even the process of digging his hand into the leather trousers provided an extra level of unneeded humiliation. In the buzzing yellow light of the store's interior, Wesley slapped a few items onto the counter: Diet Coke, a package of cheese crackers, and the banana with the fewest brown spots. The clerk – HELLO, MY NAME IS DENYSE! --smacked her gum. "Get ya some jerky, and you'll have all the food groups."

He closed his eyes and tried to recall that old prayer from his boyhood, Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. . . Or maybe he should go with Zen. It was supposed to have some relationship to keeping your motorcycle running wasn't it? I am one with the universe . I am a leaf on the wind. . . "This is fine." He breathed deeply. "Thank you." And he pried the last penny from the bottom of his pocket and dropped it on the counter.

Denyse kept chewing, kept staring, looking not entirely unlike a sheep, and thinking about sheep just reminded Wesley of the country near his father's estate in Hampshire, and suddenly he was homesick. Never mind that he despised his father's estate; he was stuck despising it from a distance for the foreseeable future, and any second now he might just break down crying in a convenience store in Oxnard, California. But the years of public school discipline had served him well, after, all, and so Wesley even managed a smile, as he started to pick up his food.

The clerk she slammed a hand down on the crackers. "You're eleven cents short."

"Oh." Wesley looked around for a Take-a-Penny cup, saw nothing. "I'll just . . .sorry, I don't have it." He tried a charming smile. He hadn't shaved in three days, but he had occasionally been told that this was a good look for him. "I have some money coming in tomorrow morning. I'm in town on a business deal." Selling what was left of his rare volumes, which stung, but might let him eat for a month, until he could figure out exactly how to parlay "Rogue demon hunting" into a marketable skill. "It's just -- It's just eleven cents."

Denyse took time to blow a little pink bubble and snap her mouth shut before she said, "I have to void the sale."

*

Wesley ended up back in the parking lot with a brown banana, a crushed package of crackers, and a parched throat. He was certain that there was some alternate universe in which he would have pulled the crossbow from his belt, jammed it in Denyse's face, and barked, "Do you still have to void the sale?" He had read a theory in one science journal -- or maybe it was a wizarding digest, he couldn't always keep them straight -- that everything that could possibly happen actualy did, in one dimension or other. What was the name for it? Supersymmetry. Like a paper snowflake, folded in on itself, expanded a million times only with slight differences. It was an interesting idea, certainly, though he had his own doubts about how it could work in practice. If he really did exist in a million different dimensions at once, in order for that to mean anything, he still had to be himself. And when it came to that, he couldn't really imagine that a man who would stick a crossbow in an ovine salesclerk's face over eleven cents -- no man who would do that could really be Wesley.

Of course, there was always the possibility that lack of blood sugar was responsible for otherwise irrational thoughts making sense to him. Once he set to the task, Wesley wolfed the food down in about ten seconds, and licked the cheese off the paper, as discreetly as it was possible to do such a thing in a parking lot. Clearly, this wasn't going to make a dent in his gnawing hunger. In the morning, he would be able to see a contact who dealt in occult books, who had offered to pay him in cash. But it was too late, now, to call on any civilized bibliophile, which left the small question of what he was supposed to do in the eight hours until dawn. He had a favorite paperback curled in the pocket of his jacket, against his chest, and he thought of going to lie on the beach and read, until he remembered that the last battery in his flashlight had died last night in Bakersfield.

A neon light crackled across the parking lot, and he looked up at the marquee of the Fabulous Ladies' Night Club. He closed his eyes, and wondered what it would be like to be the kind of man who could walk into a place like that, confident of walking out with a woman. In other words, a man with very low standards. Or low inhibitions. Though the truth was, he wasn't thinking about sex. After the last few months on the road, he would have been ridiculously grateful to anyone who was simply willing to touch him. But he was just thinking, right now, about a bed. A place to sleep.

And then he opened his eyes, looked across the lot, and saw Xander Harris.

*

I don't know too much for truth  
But my heart knows how to pound  
My legs know how to love someone  
My voice knows how to sound

 

Xander was coming off a fourteen-hour shift, washing dishes at the Fabulous Ladies' Nightclub. The flesh felt as though it was about to slide off his hands. Under the mesh of his Ventura County Strawberry Festival baseball cap, hair stuck to his scalp. 20 Classics of Country and Western Music usually got him through these shifts but, tonight, the battery had died on his Walkman at the very beginning of the dinner rush. To avoid the frightening prospect of conversation with his co-workers – or the depressing and more likely prospect that none of them would attempt conversation with him – he had been imagining an increasingly bizarre series of conversations. They started with a bikini-clad Amy Yip praising his biceps, progressed through Cordelia Chase asking him for advice on small engine repair, to Principal Snyder delivering a travelogue about his days in the 'Nam and, most recently, former Vice President Dan Quayle dropping by with an urgent question about the mid-70s run of Fantastic Four comics.

So he really wasn't the least surprised when he ducked out of the back door, cut across the parking lot of Sharp Larry's, and saw Wesley Wyndam-Pryce in a leather jacket, standing next to a motorcycle. Things got a little weirder when he closed his eyes, then opened them, and Wesley was still there. Still, Xander just figured that he had progressed from harmless escapist daydreaming to full-fledged pathological hallucination. Which might be bad, he thought. Oh well, I'll sleep on it.

But then the figure across the lot stopped, looked at Xander, and there was eye contact. There was awareness. You couldn't make eye contact with your own hallucination. Suddenly, Xander was faced with the prospect of actual significant interaction with a real human being, which he had been more or less successfully avoiding for the entire month since he drove out of Sunnydale. So he did the only logical thing.

Xander averted his eyes and started to walk in the other direction.

"Xander!" The voice came after him, and the accent was unmistakable. Xander froze and swore to himself. He didn't look, but heard the voice getting closer. "Alexander Harris!" Like there just might be another Xander in the vicinity.

"Wesley," Xander sighed, turning to face him. "Wyndam-Pryce." Half-heartedly mocking the Masterpiece Theatre accent. He thought of the Upper-Class Twit Olympics on Monty Python. It would be just like that clueless excuse for a replacement watcher to miss the clear evidence that Xander didn't want to talk with him.

Xander was fully prepared not to take the hand that he knew Wesley would offer -- he always would offer, in Sunnydale, and no one ever accepted -- except that Wesley wasn't offering it.

Instead, Wesley placed his hands in the pockets of a black leather jacket and rocked back on the heels of his motorcycle boots. Either because he thought it looked cool, or because it was the only way he could move in those leather pants. "Xander. Fancy seeing you here." And the way he hit the word 'seeing' told Xander that he hadn't missed the snub at all. He just, for some reason, didn't want Xander to get away with it.

"Yeah," Xander said, feeling lame, but unable to think of an immediate escape from the situation. "I thought that looked like you, but I figured I was seeing things." His eyes flicked down the six feet of leather-clad Englishman. "Nice pants."

"Nice apron," Wesley answered, not missing a beat.

Xander Harris's how to be a player, rule one. If you're going to insult a former romantic rival's attire, make sure you've remembered to remove the green kitchen smock with "Fabulous Ladies!" – and an appropriate visual aid – stenciled on the pocket.

"How's the back?" Because the last time he had seen Wesley was in the middle of the Big Fight, while the Watcher lay on the pavement asking for assistance.

"Very well, thank you. How are all your little girlfriends managing to stave off the destruction of humanity without the support of your valuable sarcasm?"

Xander blinked. This was Wesley of the tailored suits and perfect English manners. "That was mean," he finally managed.

Wesley shrugged as though acknowledging a compliment. "I left the Council. I am no longer paid to be nice to the Slayer's friends."

"The Council paid you for that? Who pays your friends, your mother?"

"My mother? Your mother -- " Wesley stopped in mid-sentence, and broke into a smile. Xander smiled back, and then they both laughed, because here they were, two men who had survived an apocalypse, standing in a parking lot in Oxnard on the verge of telling your-mama jokes.

Now Wesley put out his hand. "Nice to see a familiar face, Harris."

"Same here." And, as he finally took Wesley Wyndam-Pryce by the hand, Xander realized that he meant it

*

"So," Xander said, uncapping a bottle of Hurricane Malt Liquor. "What brings you to the Gem of Ventura County, Gateway to the Central Coast? Is it perhaps our Kart Racing School? It's endorsed by A.J. Foyt, you know. And then there's the Otis Chandler Vintage Museum of Transportation and Wildlife."

"I came because of books. There's a dealer who might give me cash for some old volumes." Wesley took a swig of his own bottle, then made a face "What is this stuff?"

"Two bucks a bottle," Xander answered. Knowing Wesley wasn't going to complain, since he'd been dead broke as opposed to just marginally broke, like Xander. Xander had provided a small sum of money, Wesley had provided the proof of age to satisfy that witchy cashier at Sharp Larry's.

They sat just outside the trailer that Xander was renting, Xander stretched out on the platform by the door, and Wesley resting across the steps just beneath him. They had taken turns in the shower, Wes stammering an almost absurd gratitude for the warm water. He had changed out of the leathers, and Xander thought he looked much more comfortable, if not more at home, swimming in an Anaheim Mighty Ducks T-shirt and a red pair of Sunnydale High Phys. Ed. sweatpants. It was odd to think that someone so manifestly a grownup as Wesley could be too small for Xander's clothes. They were roughly the same height, but Wes was extremely thin, something Xander had never noticed in Sunnydale.

It had been somehow been difficult to think of the Watcher having a body beneath the tailored suits. Xander had been jealous of Cordelia's crush on Wesley, of course, but he had always assumed it that was a product of clothes, accent, and money -- or at least the appearance of money, though the ex-watcher's current circumstances suggested otherwise. Now he was just another guy -- Wes, not Wesley -- and for the first time, Xander moved beyond abstract jealousy to wonder if Wes and Cordy had kissed. If they'd made out, if they might even have slept together.

"What about you?" said Wesley.

"Huh?" Xander snapped out of his reverie, thinking for a moment that Wesley was quizzing him on his relationship with Cordelia. "Oh. . .why am I here? Same reason. Because of a book." He leaned back his head and recited, "I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won't bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary splitup and my feeling that everything was dead."

"Oh, God," Wesley groaned. "Jack bloody Kerouac? What, did that beatnik bible convince you to ditch your middle class privilege and start washing dishes in Oxnard?"

"No," Xander admitted. "Jack got me to the 'on the road' part; my car breaking down took care of the rest."

"Kerouac," Wesley sniffed. "You know what Truman Capote said about 'On the Road'? 'That's not writing. It's typing."

Xander slammed down his bottle and glared at Wesley. "What does that even mean?"

"It means. . ." Wesley hesitated. "That it's not a very good book, I suppose."

"So you've read it? Or you just memorized the first line to impress people at cocktail parties."

"I hardly think that book would impress anyone at any party I'd care to attend."

But Xander judged from Wesley's look that he had guessed correctly. "You're just annoyed that I've read something you haven't."

"I just recognize pretentious undergraduate taste in 'literature' when I hear it."

Xander, who had no prospect of being an undergraduate anywhere, recognized air quotes when he heard them. "On the Road is an American classic – "

"Oh, an American classic. Honestly, Xander. The Iliad is a classic. Paradise Lost is a classic." Wesley took another swig from the malt liquor, then looked down to the bottle, looked up at Xander, and dissolved into laughter. "Listen to me. You must think I'm an utter twat."

"No," Xander said, honestly. "But mostly because I have no idea what that means."

"It means, that I'm a man drinking two dollar liquor straight from the bottle, on the stairs of a trailer in Oxnard, being a snob about literature." He smiled, and it might have been the first time Xander had ever seen a real smile on his face. He should sell toothpaste. Then Xander wondered why the hell he cared about Wesley's smile. "Listen," said Wesley. "I'll give the Kerouac a whirl, if you want. I just. . ." He stood, almost tripping over the leg of the sweatpants, where the elastic had gone bad. "Let me get something."

Wesley walked into the trailer and rooted around in his bag, which he had placed neatly on Xander's dresser. "Here." He pulled out a paperback, and ran a thumb over the cover before handing it carefully to Xander.

"Down and Out in Paris and London?" Xander looked at the author's picture, a weary lined face with an odd mustache. "Isn't the 1984 guy? The one responsible for my lifelong hatred of rats?"

Wesley wrinkled his nose, a hint of the fussy Watcher coming through. "I'd think rats themselves were enough to create a lifelong hatred of rats. But yes, George Orwell, when he was a young man before the war, went to Paris and to London to experience the life of the underclasses."

As Wesley spoke, he looked around the room for a seat, but the space was small, not intended for company. Xander nodded at the hastily made bed, and Wesley gingerly lowered himself to sit on the mattress. Guess it's the floor for me tonight, Xander thought. Which sucked, because he was exhausted. But he did understand some things about basic hospitality, even if he hadn't learned them from his own family.

Xander stood by the dresser, looking down at the book in his hand. "Is it good?"

"Smashing. I must have gone through it a dozen times when I was at school. Pawning books and nice clothes to buy food. Living a life on the margins of society. There's a part where he works as a dishwasher at a hotel. That's what made me think of you. This book has really kept me going over the past month."

"Are you saying you want a job?"

"Sorry?"

"You can wash dishes, right? The traditional way to buy food in this country is to get a job."

"Washing – dishes?" Wes looked genuinely shocked, if not appalled by the suggestion. "I – I – doubt my work permit – had a special dispensation for my visa, I –"

"So the whole one with the common man bit is kind of theoretical?" Xander found himself smirking at Wesley's bewilderment. "Show me your hands."

"My –?" said Wesley, but he obeyed, holding one out with the palm up.

Xander put the book down and sat on the bed next to Wesley, taking the other man's hand in both of his: one cradling from beneath, one running over the palm, like a fortune teller. "Well," said Xander. "There's a little bit of a callous –" He ran his thumb down the side – "there."

"Probably from my fencing days."

"You used to pay cash for stolen electronics?"

"No. Fencing as in fighting with swords," Wesley answered seriously. Then, seeing Xander's smile, he rolled his eyes. "Yes, fine. You got me."

Xander's own hands were a collection of old scrapes and bruises. Ever since he could remember, he had been the one called on to lift this, hammer that, run out to the old family property with Uncle Rory and cut down dead branches. Then for Buffy it was whittling stakes, wielding the hammer to bust open an old tomb. Finally this summer, he had added burns from the industrial dishwasher, cuts from knives and broken glass, and the generally corrosive effect of improperly diluted detergents and bleaches.

Wesley had the longest fingers that Xander had ever seen. The lines on his palm made a clear 'M' – that was for something, Willow had tried to tell him. Money? Marriage? Mortgage? Mortality? All of Xander's lines were broken. Then Xander looked up into Wesley's eyes and saw that his face was curious, and that his eyes, fixed on Xander, were blue. His eyes must always have been blue. Xander couldn't remember whether he knew anyone else with blue eyes.

And in the next second, Xander realized that he was sitting on his bed, holding the hand and staring into the eyes of a man he hardly knew, and the weird part was that it didn't seem as weird as it seemed that it ought to seem. "You have nice hands," said Xander.

"Yes," said Wesley, but it wasn't a response to anything Xander had said. It was only a word.

Moments happened, between men. Between boys. Xander remembered. Twelve years old, in a room with Jesse, stretched on the floor reading comic books. An accidental scraping of legs. A shared look. In the van with Oz, bumping elbows. A back slap from Holden Webster, in gym class, that went on a second too long. Xander knew what you did with these moments. You turned your head. You dropped your hand. You said something about Wonder Woman, or Radiohead, or the Lakers, even thought neither one of you knew the first fucking thing about basketball; you said something to let the other guy know it was all right, it didn't mean anything, to reassure everyone who overheard that the two of you were men.

Xander understood. But he didn't look away. He didn't speak. He tightened his grip on Wesley's palm, leaned in and kissed him on the mouth.

*

Wesley's lips seemed frozen, pushed tight against Xander's approach. But he didn't pull away. Instead, he placed a hand on Xander's arm, another on the back of his head, and then Wesley's mouth opened and it was his tongue pushing Xander's lips. The kiss didn't last long, but it wasn't bad, and then they both seemed to pull out of it at once. Wesley brought a hand to his mouth, and rubbed wetness from his lips. "Well," he said, in a voice that sounded just slightly too steady. "I must say, that was rather better than with Cordelia."

Xander snorted. "Hardly. She's a better kisser than you –"

He understood Wesley's meaning, belatedly, just as Wesley said, "Bite your tongue!" and laughed as he tightened his hand around Xander's arm. This time, Wesley started the kiss and. . .Xander didn't know how to compare this to anything he had shared with Cordelia. Or Willow or, good God, Faith. But it wasn't bad, he didn't want it to stop. And then he sort of did want it to stop, because there should be something that happened next, and he wasn't exactly sure of the how or the what, but Wesley was older, he ought to be the one. . .

Or maybe that meant he couldn't be the one. Or maybe, Xander thought – his jaw all the time working, his lips pushing and moving and closing around Wesley's tongue – maybe if they were both the kind of men who got kissed by Cordelia Chase, it meant that they were both hoping that the other one would take charge.

So Xander moved his hand to Wesley's shoulder and started to push him down onto the bed. For just a moment, the other man's arm stiffened in resistance. Then he relaxed and let Xander guide him onto the mattress, which creaked and sagged under their weight. "All right, I've heard of bed-breaking sex," said Xander. "But in this case it wouldn't take much."

Wesley gave a thin, airless laugh, and Xander knew it hadn't been a very good joke, but at least Wes hadn't run away screaming at the mention of sex. Like I could still have the wrong idea about what's going on here, Xander thought, Like maybe he'll slap me in the face and say, 'Harris, I'm shocked. I thought you were a gentleman.'

Of course, Wesley didn't. He nudged Xander's thigh with his knee, signaling him to make room on the bed. Lying on his back, Wesley stretched out his arms. Xander moved on top of him, one leg on the side of each knee, and reached down to pull up the bottom of Wesley's T-shirt. Again, Xander was surprised to notice how thin he was, ribs almost visible, in need of a good home-cooked meal, as Mrs. Summers would say, and then he wondered why the hell he was thinking about Buffy's mom at a time like this, and of course the only thing to do was to slide his hand down Wesley's stomach, under the elastic wasteband of the Sunnydale High sweatpants and close his fingers around the growing erection.

Wesley breathed in sharply, pressed his lips together, then looked up at Xander. "You've done this before, I trust?"

"Oh, yeah," Xander said. "Lots. I mean. . . not with another guy's . . ." And then he trailed off before he had to give a name for the thing he was touching, before he babbled that he'd spent countless hours reaching under the waist of the same sweat pants to engage in more or less the same activity. Because even if Wesley was willing to sleep with him, Xander had a feeling he wouldn't be thrilled to know the history of those pants.

Xander really did have a lot of experience in this particular area. And if Wesley wasn't inclined to laugh at his jokes, Xander forgave him, because before long he was gasping, "God damn. God damn – hell – Xander – oh fuck god damn bloody hell," responding to the motion of Xander's hand.

Blood began to pulse in Xander's ears as he felt his heartbeat rising. He tried not to imagine his hard penis sliding into Wesley's hand – One thing at a time, he thought, and then he thought about those hands. Xander pushed up against the mattress with his own unengaged arm, moving his groin away from Wesley. Leaning down closer, he tried to kiss Wesley on the mouth again, but his chin rolled back as he groaned "God damn!" one last time. And then with a gasp, "Oh, shit, sorry." It took only a second for Xander to understand the reason for the apology. He felt the shudder against his hand, and again Wesley said, "Shit. I was trying to. . ." Wesley had managed to slide the sweatpants off his hip on one side, but not all the way.

"It's my fault," Xander removed his hand quickly, and rolled to the side to let Wesley sit up.

Moving to the side of the bed, he slipped the sweats off into a pile on the floor. "I didn't mean to make a mess in your trousers." Wesley spoke quickly, then winced, "God, that sounded awful."

It wouldn't be the first time, Xander almost said. Which would have sounded worse. Instead, he reached over to the windowsill by the end of the nightstand. With his clean hand, he pulled a tissue from a wrinkled pocketsize pouch, and threw the rest to Wesley. Well, that was an interesting experience, Xander thought. I'll have to think about whether that is something I ever want to do again. Before he felt the pulsing of his own groin and thought. Oh yeah. That. He looked over to Wesley and said, "And now?" In what he hoped was a charming boyish tone; not at all a puppylike, pathetic one.

"Now?" Wesley sighed and rolled back his head. "I'm going to hell."

Xander blinked, not expecting that. He hadn't imagined Wesley being especially religious, but maybe all those crosses did some kind of osmosis. "Because you're gay?"

Wesley choked out a laugh. "Because you're eighteen." Then his eyes widened, "Good God, I hope you're eighteen."

"Last fall." He edged back toward Wesley. "I don't see what that has to do –"

"You're young. I'm – not so young. I just hate to feel like I've taken advantage."

"Well, at this point," Xander touched Wesley's shoulder, "You have." He reached down and lifted Wesley's hand, until it rested on Xander's thigh. "But if you want to fix that."

Wesley nodded, and gave Xander a hard look. "Are you --?" he prompted. "You think you might be --?"

"You know the song. . .'" He hummed a bar " 'She said – 'Tell me are you a Christian child?' And I said 'Ma'am I am tonight'"

A second's pause, and then a smile broke across Wesley's face. "Yes, I suppose that's a way to. . ." He leaned in to kiss Xander's cheek. "A way to look at it. A kiss is just a kiss." He lowered his lips to the boy's neck. "Hand is just a hand." Kissing his collarbone. "Blow job's just a blow job."

This men-of-the-world patter, coming out of Wesley's mouth, sent Xander into a minor coughing fit. As he doubled over, Wesley pulled back and looked at him. "My God," he laughed.

"What?" Xander choked out, wondering how Wesley was suddenly the suave one.

"My God," said Wesley. "You've never had a proper blow job."

"I –" Xander said. "Sure well. Not with another --. Not exactly. Not. . .What are you doing?"

Because Wesley had slipped to his knees. "Actually," said Wesley. "I understand there are many different hell dimensions. I'm sure some of them are quite interesting." And Wesley slid his hand up Xander's stomach and pushed him back onto the bed.

*

The sun in Wesley's eyes woke him, and as he drifted into consciousness, a series of progressively unusual revelations struck him. He was under a roof. He was in a bed. He was in bed with a person. That person was male. That person was Xander Harris.

God, he thought, How much did I have to drink last night? And the revelation that immediately followed was, Hardly anything. He doubted he could have drunk any more of that two-dollar a bottle horse piss if he tried.

Xander slept with his head tilted back, Adam's apple up, one hand flopped out to the floor, the other over his eyes. It had been a while since Wesley had woken up with anyone, much less a male someone who was stronger than him. Raising Xander's arm to slide out from under it, he shivered at the memory of a swimmer he'd known at Oxford. The boy had possessed a lazy grace, a comfort in his long limbs that was. . .well, nothing like Xander, actually. Xander reminded Wesley a lot more of his own uncertain teenage self, although it had taken last night for him to see that.

The shower was almost warm. There was hardly any water pressure, but that just made it feel like England. Wesley had already had one shower here, last night, but he didn't know how long it would be until he had another.

Wesley changed back into his own clothes in the cramped restroom. When he walked out, Xander sat on the Naugahyde chair, across from the small electric stove, and held up his hand.

"You like Ding-Dongs?"

Wesley gulped. "Sorry?"

Xander tossed him a plastic package with something brown, presumably chocolate, inside. "All I got," he apologized. "We could go over to Larry's and. . ."

"No." Wes said hastily. "No, this is quite. . ." He had already torn it open and bit in. "Vile. God. You live on this food."

"Well, the sushi bars in walking distance don't open until. . . Never. Though the Fabulous Ladies' opens at 11, which is when I've got to go in and. . ."

"Oh, bugger." Wes looked at the clock. Ten-thirty. "I've got to go or I'm going to miss the guy with the books. And if I miss him, I'll never get to Bakersfield, and after Bakersfield, there's a thing in Reno and. . ." He stopped to look at Xander. "Does this make me an asshole?"

"What? Nah." Xander shook his head and sunk further into the couch -- making a point, Wesley thought, of slumping casually. "You're a guy on the move. Seeing America. On the road. Just like Jack Kerouac."

Wesley winced. "Sorry."

"No," Xander shook his head. "Don't be sorry. I was the one who came onto you. Remember."

"Yes." Wesley nodded his head slowly. "Yes, I do remember it that way." He laughed. "Though I didn't exactly kneecap you in the course of defending my virtue. Actually," he coughed. "I meant I was sorry I made fun of your book."

"Oh." For the first time, Xander flushed a little, then got to his feet, dropped in the floor and started rummaging under the bed. "Here!" Standing, triumphant, he tossed Wesley a paperback. Wesley tried not to wince as it bounced in front of him -- he hated to see any book treated that way, even that one -- but he picked up On the Road and smiled at Xander. "Thank you. I will endeavor to discover what I've been missing."

A smile crept over Xander's face. "Yeah, there seems to be a lot of that going around."

Wesley felt his own smile, as his eyes traced phantom stains on the frayed carpet. "Let me get this straight. Buffy's the one you've always liked. Cordelia you dated. Willow, you cheated on Cordy with and. . .Faith's the one you actually slept with." He looked up. "If you don't like girls? It's a big bloody waste, that's all I can say."

Xander shrugged. "I don't know," he said honestly.

"Well let me tell you a big dirty secret." Hoisting the bag to his shoulder, he leaned toward Xander and squeezed his arm. "You're eighteen. You don't have to."

Xander leaned into Wesley, not exactly a hug, but more than casual touch. "What about you?"

"I don't know anything," Wesley answered honestly. "I don't even know where I'm going after Reno." He shook his head. "You'll say hello to Cordelia for me?"

"Me?" Xander laughed. "You're more likely to see her than I am. Since I'm going back to the one place on the world she's sworn never to return to."

Sunnydale?" Wesley broke into laughter. "I can't believe I almost asked 'Why not?' I suppose the better question would be, 'why are you going back'?"

"All my little girlfriends," Xander answered. "They're counting on my valuable sarcasm to stave off the apocalypse."

"You never know." Wesley offered his hand, and Xander took it, strong and confident, a shake between men.  
"Thank you for the bed." Then Xander leaned in for a kiss that just brushed his lips. Wesley shut his mouth to it, and they pulled apart, both satisfied in the good-bye.

"So Wesley?" Xander called after him, just as he stepped from the door into the sunlight. "If you're not working for the council now, what exactly do you do?"

Wesley pulled himself to his full height, remembering Academy lessons on posture. "Seek out evil. Wherever it may lurk. Help the helpless. Fight the good fight." He slumped again. None of it was exactly working for him. "I'm still polishing the sales pitch," he admitted. "But I'm seeing myself as some sort of. . .independent operator?"

"You mean like a . . .rogue wicked fighter or something?"

"Rogue." He tested the word, weighing it in his mouth. "Rogue. You know, I like that quite a bit. Rogue," he repeated. "Thank you, Xander. Thank you for. . ." He looked down. "Yeah."

"Yeah," Xander answered. And they mirrored each other, hands in pockets, until Wesley turned. And he hefted the bag to his shoulder, and walked away across the lot and, like Orpheus, he thought, rising from the underworld, didn't allow himself a single look back.

_And I'll meet the ones between us  
And be thinking about you  
And all the places I have seen  
And why you were not there._


End file.
